published in: Review of Economics of the Household, 2019, 18(1), 207-237
This paper studies the causal effect of maternal and paternal unemployment on child health in China, analyzing panel data for the period 1997-2004, when the country underwent economic reforms leading to massive layoffs. We find that paternal unemployment reduces child health, while maternal unemployment has beneficial child health impacts. Analysis of channels shows that paternal and maternal unemployment have different effects on income, time use, mothers' blood pressure, and certain health investments, including children's diets. Our results support the notion that traditional gender roles can explain why mothers and fathers' unemployment affect child health so differently.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.